


Shirogane

by Littlewhitemouse



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: Multi, Post-BBL, everyone is human? I guess, hopefully not fantailcest but I don't trust myself, sakuya-centric, spiraled out of control
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlewhitemouse/pseuds/Littlewhitemouse
Summary: Sakuya had spent a lot of his time in grief with his brother. His full brother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, what's up, this doesn’t make sense, everyone has a human body, the context in which this story is written is absolutely ruined because I made the choice to give everyone a human body, please don’t think about it too hard and consider this a character piece. Post-BBL, with as many elements of BBL included as I can fucking make sense. Let’s just consider this an AU and not stress ourselves out. We’re here for polyshipping slow burn, slice of life, and Sakuya character progression. Have some tea. 
> 
> Also important to consider is the fact that I started this story two years ago, I love it and it's my baby, but I'm about 25k words in. So. Food for thought. That's the sort of writer I am. I just want to talk about my stupid AU at this point.

They rise from death hand in hand.

Sakuya has to fumble to grab on to something, something distinguishable, and it’s Hiyoko who detaches herself from what almost, horrifyingly, looks like one mass to extend her arm out to Sakuya—so thin, where are her hunter’s muscles?—to be pulled up and out of the debris.

Airing out the abandoned lab just once was bad for it. What had been sealed had begun decomposing once returned to light. And thought they might have brought Ryouta and Hiyoko back to life in a matter of days—long days, stressful days, with someone standing bodily over the doctor at all times—when they uncovered the remains and saw, inexplicably, the remains of three bodies in the pit together, there was no being done with the dirty work until Nageki arose too. 

So it was in almost post-apocalyptic ruin, rusted medical equipment and concrete barely standing, everything coated, still, in the ash, that Sakuya hefted Hiyoko out of the glass coffin, out of her own blood (a messy procedure, no matter what) with the two boys still clinging to her side, arm in arm, intertwined, almost flesh in flesh, leaving trails of viscera on Sakuya’s reaching arms.

And it was into the same dusty ruin that all three of them fell, since Sakuya was not exactly planning to help up all three of them at once, but okay, fine, if they couldn’t be separated for TWO MINUTES he would handle that, except not at all, because though he was a little more fit than he used to be, no, he could not support the loose and unstable bodily weight of three people at once. Nope.

The newly undead collapsed on top of Sakuya, bringing slime and dirt and blood and god knows all with them, and Sakuya just ended out clutching her face and asking, again, “Hiyoko? Hiyoko? Ryouta?”

It ended up that Kawara has the presence of mind to reply. “Yes? What?” he said, sounding as much confused as anything. Nageki seemed to be mostly absorbed by the fact that the sun was way, way too bright for his weak eyes.

Hiyoko began to laugh, a low-bellied, barking laugh of joy.

Sakuya was enveloped in her arms.

-

Sakuya had spent a lot of his time in grief with his brother. His full brother. 

Some months after he first escorted Yuuya home, him still weak and shaking from surgery and Sakuya still barely cognizant, he realized that Yuuya was actually very good at reading the mood; he just refused to get lost in it, as many would. He would try to pull someone out of a spiral as soon as they started falling into it, and if inciting annoyance was the fastest way out, then so be it. 

So Sakuya spent his mornings griping at Yuuya for this thing and the other, the curtains, the dishes in the sink, the bathroom, the lewd comments if nothing else had worked, until one of them left the apartment for some reason or another. Yuuya’s apartment, which their mother often visited.

Sakuya had returned to his father’s house for two hours before he couldn’t look at him. 

For as comforting (yes, comforting) as their morning routine became, Sakuya ended up spending most of his time alone. So much time that it was worrying. Yuuya was almost always gone; during the day, during the night, on holidays, at odd hours, always. And Sakuya now spent too much time with him to idly assume that he spent all that span with various women, especially after the first time someone tried to assassinate him in Yuuya’s place. To be fair, they did look pretty similar.

Though, it turned out, Yuuya was the spitting image of their father. 

Obviously, Sakuya wasn’t. The resemblance between Mrs. La Bel and her younger son was uncanny sometimes, even more evident in their almost prissy mannerisms than in their light eyes and pretty features. Pretty features which Yuuya, by the way, could stop caressing any moment now.

“Please go put your life in danger, Yuuya,” Sakuya said with annoyance, “and leave me be.”

“How can I leave you, ma petit chou, looking as forlorn as you do?” asked Yuuya lightly, somehow. 

“By walking out the door, which is right there,” Sakuya replied, ducking under Yuuya’s arm to reach for the coffeepot. Yuuya has been up for hours, or hadn’t slept; he had been in bed until ten minutes before this happened. 

And yes, it had been a bad morning, with grey clouds and an unlifted malaise from the night before. He had gone to bed trying not to think of Ryouta’s dead, red eyes, and woke up still seeing them.

Yuuya just adapted to Sakuya’s dodge, moving his arms from their gentle grip around his head to a firmer one around his shoulders, from behind. Sakuya endured it, because he could move to reach the coffee from that position. 

It also ended up possible to take a few slow sips of the barely too hot coffee from within his loose grasp, staring outside the window. Sakuya could feel the low, deep breaths Yuuya always took rustling his hair, which hadn’t even been BRUSHED yet, making him feel a little like a barbarian. But it was harder to take care of himself, it ended out, when sharp disapproval didn’t come when he didn’t bother to do so.

Sharp disapproval had been replaced by an almost absent-minded hand untangling a few pale strands from where they rested on the side of his head, brushing his ear. And it was only because Yuuya wouldn’t mention it that Sakuya leaned slightly into the touch, letting Yuuya neaten him out. Maybe not the misery, but some of his anxiety melted. 

“Want some sugar?” asked Yuuya softly. 

“Stop that,” said Sakuya, “but yes, I would like some literal sugar put into my literal coffee.” 

Yuuya chuckled and detached himself from Sakuya. Sakuya swung into one of the mismatched chairs at the tiny kitchen table while he was momentarily free. “Would Albert like some coffee too?” he asked, back turned, amusement in his voice.

Sakuya turned around to glare outside the window. “How do you know he’s there even before I do?” he asked. “Have you tagged him?”

“No, pity’s sake, I wouldn’t even try to pull something like that on him,” Yuuya said, spreading out his hands. “I just have better training than you do, brother.”

“Training,” said Sakuya, mockingly. “You just assumed he was outside same as I did.”

“Maybe,” shrugged Yuuya. “If I leave a cup outside, will he take it?”

“Not unless he knows it’s for him.”

“I’ll smear some blood on it.”

“No, you will not,” Sakuya commanded, but only chuckles responded to him; that, and a bent spoon pouring sugar into his drink. Sakuya took the spoon from Yuuya’s hand to stir it in. 

Maybe he watched the coffee swirling around too long and too silently, because Yuuya saw fit to interrupt him again. “The private trial finished up yesterday,” he said, a little too airily.

Sakuya put the spoon down, as close to the sink as he could manage from the table. “And?” 

“Guilty, obviously,”

“Obviously.”

“But we agreed to not try to do anything much for now.”

“Obviously.”

“The fact that he’s already taking steps to rectify the damage he’s done made the trial a moot point from the start. It was done mostly for the sake of the victims, of which there were more than even I expected. You might have enjoyed some of the sheer rage.”

“There wouldn’t be a point to me attending.”

Yuuya picked up the spoon, and the sound of water pouring from the tap told Sakuya what he was doing, but he didn’t look up any. “I’ll admit that your case was closed…” 

Yuuya let it drop. “He’s not going to be having a good time once he’s done with his sentence for this case, though.” 

“Can you really punish him? You? The Dove Party? Anyone?”

“You know?” said Yuuya. “If he’s cooperating, yes.”

Sakuya snorted, and then reconsidered the tone of Yuuya’s voice. He glanced up at his brother, but Yuuya was, to all appearance, focused on coffee.

“I doubt it’s guilt,” said Yuuya, softly, after some time. “I don’t know what it is, or why.” He waited some time again. “He’s seeing something through. I’ll take it, but I don’t know why he’s working with us.”

Sakuya felt his guts twist. The sheer mystery of it—ever since seeing his medical file kept neatly in the Doctor’s personal drawer with the likes of Ryouta’s and Anghel’s—the heavy unknown of it all—how unexpected his reasons for destroying Ryouta like he did—Sakuya took a huge, painful gulp of the hot coffee. “Blech,” he said forlornly.

“I feel the same, mon cher,” Yuuya sighed. 

“But he’ll bring them back,” said Sakuya, surprising himself.

Yuuya hesitated. “He’s seeing something through,” he repeated. 

Sakuya had actually seen Dr. Iwamine a few times since that day. It was always horrible, despite being totally cordial. The way he shook and sweat—the way he couldn’t look the doctor in the eyes—the way—

No. Not now. He was tired of breaking down. He had done too much of it in the last few months. 

After a minute, he looked up with a flinty hardness in his eyes and his jaw set just in time to see Yuuya setting a bloodied coffee cup on the windowsill.

“What. No. YUUYA. WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET THAT.”

“The pantry, just like the rest of the mugs.”

“NO.”

“Come on, it’s cheap. This one is part of the set I got at a garage sale. I think it’s even chipped.”

“YUUYA.”

“Well, time to go put my life in danger,” he said, his eyes crinkling up at the edges. Sakuya was still blustering, but it was fading when faced with the sight of an up-beat, laughing Yuuya. 

What had once been normal was precious, now that Sakuya had a chance to see how rare it was. It was still odd to him, trying to maintain another person’s emotions. That trait had been discouraged in him when it had been of more use to command and be cold, be willing to sacrifice for his own sake, to stay on top.

Now, softness was coming to him slowly, painfully, and in spurts, and yet, somehow, naturally.

“Try not to lose it,” he ended up saying, voice between the edges of its previous harshness and something else. 

“I will keep it to bother you another day, mon frere,” Yuuya promised, draining his cup in an impressive gulp and then rounding the corner to embrace Sakuya. Sakuya stayed perfectly still and let nature take its warm, enveloping course. But when Yuuya tried to actually nuzzle him, he pushed him away. Gently. Like you might push away a cat trying to coerce food out of you. “And tell me you’ll do schoolwork while I’m out today,” Yuuya finished, finally letting him go. 

After a few months of being virtually unable to do anything productive, the anxious terror of being a failure had spurred Sakuya to start studying to take a GED exam to finish the education that had been cut short, which endeavor Yuuya wholeheartedly supported. To no one’s surprise, Yuuya had decided to leave his education unfinished and continue his work instead, but since Yuuya could support them both, the doors were open for Sakuya to at least obtain the dignity of a high school degree. 

“Of course,” he said, waving Yuuya off haughtily. Yuuya chuckled again, as was his wont, and saluted Sakuya before swinging his way out of the kitchen. Sakuya, looking vaguely in his direction, heard him rustling around the apartment to gather this and the other thing, from bedrooms and living rooms and bathrooms, before rushing out the door, down the hallway, and out of hearing distance. 

When Sakuya finally looked up from his unseeing staring some ten minutes later, wiping one eye with frustration, he was unsurprised but annoyed to see that the blood-stained cup of coffee had disappeared without his notice. 

-

So life went for some months. Yuuya worked, came home at odd hours of the day, and once or twice, sending Sakuya into a panic, came home wounded. (He tried even harder to not do so after the first time he had to watch Sakuya weep. In the lethargy of grief, even, he had not wept in front of him.) Sakuya studied until he felt able to obtain his GED, and he did so on his first try.

They celebrated with their mother on a secret visit to a quiet café for dinner. Sakuya wasn’t aware that he could be clingy, either, until that night. (And bless Mrs. La Bel, because she waited to cry after her boys had left her at the airport, arm in arm; the boys who had been enemies in their youth.)

It was only a week after that night that Mrs. La Bel became Ms. Shirogane again in a move that might have been fatal for her had not her eldest son been Sakazaki fucking Yuuya. As it stood, things were significantly harder on the three of them after her divorce, but one would have hardly known by the joy that Sakuya’s joy brought them all. (Of course, he still tried to be composed, but he had so much of a harder time not showing that he was happy when he was happy now. It was harder to hold it in when, trembling, he couldn’t help clinging to the people that were still alive, that still wanted him, that didn’t think he was worthless now.)

Another week after that, Sakuya La Bel was Shirogane Sakuya as well. He had considered the choice at painful lengths for seven days, and then arrived at the courthouse a bare half hour after the decision was made. (It happened after Mr. La Bel claimed he had no claim on or care for the child, which no further comments, in the divorce hearings, information about which Sakuya had transmitted to him. 

He did not attend.)

It was a little unnecessary for Sakazaki Yuuya to become Shirogane Yuuya as well—a lot excessive, actually—but he did. 

Not long after that, Sakuya became unable to pay Albert any longer. Why he continued being alive and coffee continued disappearing from the windowsill, no one could say. (Which is a damn lie. Yuuya, and the entirety of the Dove Party, honestly, could say.) 

Sakuya didn’t visit others who had lived through that day often, at least, not at first. If he had had the mind to be concerned about the well-being of other people much at that time (as active empathy was new to him, at least, empathy unrepressed) he may have been worried about Anghel, who few had seen since that day. But when he saw him, and San, and Professor Kazuaki, they were all still breathing. Which is the most he could say about them collectively, but they were all still breathing.

(Anghel had no idea what he was or would be doing with his life, but his mother supported him lovingly. Hitori was seeing a misery unlike he had known before, but a turning point, unbeknownst to him, was on its way. Oko San was fine, actually.)

Doctor Iwamine continued his work.


	2. Chapter 2

It was surprisingly nerve-wracking for Sakuya to start attending college. Though, after completely giving up everything he had once wanted, he was desperate to succeed by SOME standard, ANY standard, it would have been more stressful to NOT apply for a university education, Sakuya found himself with nerves that he hadn’t had before that day making him a little anxious and incredibly angry at himself as the first day of classes drew near. 

It wasn’t the top university in France, which had originally been his plan. What was once unthinkable—staying in Japan forever—now seemed like his only choice. He couldn’t leave. The thought choked him. Yes, he missed home, he missed the culture he knew, the language he dreamt in, the trees that grew in his native soil, the native waters lapping, the native snows falling in the native cold, and some… a few… maybe one or two of the high culture kids he grew up with, but it wasn’t an option. Not with his mother and Yuuya here. Not with Mr. La Bel there.

Not with Hiyoko and Ryouta under this ground.

So it was to be a middling university in Japan because, for some reason, his grades sunk a little after he stared death in the eye several times in a 24 hour time span. Besides that, he found himself feeling a little less up for a rigorous liberal education that would make him one of the leaders of tomorrow once, you know, it was sure that he wouldn’t be one of the leaders of tomorrow.

In lieu of that, a modest musical education at a decent college sounded acceptable. 

His mother fussed over him quite a bit when classes started, and the more he tried to reassure her, the more anxious he became himself. After all, he WOULD be traveling to and from classes by train, since only Yuuya had reliable transportation, and he had to use it, obviously. And he WOULD be struggling to buy the expensive books and instruments, which hadn’t fully hit him yet. Or he might have to figure out how to rent them. And yes, because he hadn’t actually had a proper musical education, he would start out behind a lot of the other students, which was something else he wasn’t used to. And he WOULD be a figure of interest once everyone found out he had been part of the Hatoful Incident; not just part of, but one of the few people in that terrible, wide-spread photograph, in which a bloody professor, doctor, and a handful of terrified students are caught mid-emergence from a dark basement with guns trained at them from all sides.

Sakuya found that picture interesting, because he didn’t actually remember the moment. He didn’t remember anything between letting go of Ryouta and the sudden, weird silence of the police station. And, in the photograph, he looks like it. 

But, being the person he was, Sakuya saw no two ways around it—he would go to college, no matter the discomfort. Sure, he expected to face difficulty and misunderstandings. Sure, anymore, he expected the occasional breakdown. It didn’t matter what he was faced with, he was determined to deal with it and panic later, if need be.

However, he didn’t expect to face down Kazuaki Nanaki. 

He had been attending classes for only a handful of (stressful, awkward) weeks when he first hunkered down in a library for the afternoon. He hadn’t thought he would start his education with the physics of sound, but, well, it was something you were best off knowing if you wished to be a composer. After someone recognizing him in class disoriented him (not that he couldn’t handle the situation with grace and poise, but he had been inwardly disoriented by being pointed out as ‘one of the Hatoful survivors’ in public) he didn’t even notice the implications of what he said as he noisily dropped his books down on a library table, conveniently lit by a south-facing window, until several seconds after he said it. 

He had said, “Oh, wake up, Professor Kazuaki.”

Kazuaki woke up with a jolt and stared, wide-eyed, at Sakuya. Sakuya stopped himself halfway through pulling out a chair and stared at Kazuaki. Kazuaki’s jaw dropped open.

Sakuya got a hair’s breadth away from picking his books back up and leaving. But then Kazuaki’s expression went from utter shock to such a familiar look, an almost lazy smile, characteristic of his lethargy (characteristic of days before Sakuya had seen him drag Ryouta away into a closed room with a gun in his hand to NO. NO) and he ended up plunking haphazardly down in the seat next to him instead, a bit weak at the knees.

“Sakuya,” said Kazuaki. “The ponytail is cute.”

Sakuya consciously straightened himself in his chair and his chair in relation to the table. “Professor. Uh. You. Huh.” He stopped himself and tried again. “Are you teaching?” 

“Tutoring,” said Kazuaki, “I’m still looking for a full time position.”

“And the student you’re tutoring?...” Sakuya asked, looking over his shoulder.

“They all left a while ago. I meant to leave too, but the sun coming in that window was so nice…” Kazuaki’s voice trailed lowly away as he looked out of the third story window at the peaceful autumn afternoon. It was a bright, warm day, especially for being so late in the year, and Sakuya couldn’t blame anyone for WANTING to fall asleep in the middle of the day. However, he had his opinions about the people who did.

But anymore, he didn’t voice them often. Not because he had gotten any less judgmental, he was just slowly, and mostly subconsciously, losing his taste for upsetting and distancing people. 

“You’re a student here, though, I assume?”

“Yes. I’m. I’ve just started my music degree.” 

“Music. Wonderful.” Kazuaki’s smile was wide and his eyes thin and slit in the bright light. “I still remember hearing you and Hiyoko one day from the hall, playing the piano… You were good in all of your subjects. I would have written you a recommendation if I had known you were furthering your education, hm. I think you’re the only one…”

Again, Sakuya declined to tell his former teacher that he didn’t want his recommendation. “Do you… keep in contact with any of the others?” 

“Hm. A few.” Kazuaki looked out the window. “I visit Anghel from time to time. I usually only see his mother, though. Apparently he doesn’t come out often. Oko San is gone.Run away, I mean. I visit Ryouta, too, though I doubt it does him any good. Can’t really get to where he is properly. And his mother. She’s in the hospital full time now. Oh, and do you remember the girl who usually sat in the very back of the class?...”

Staring out the window, as if unfocused, Kazuaki told him briefly, succinctly, about the children who almost died. Those living with their parents. Moved far away. Have a quiet job at a convenience store.

Didn’t make it. 

Sakuya hadn’t even known some of them had died. Complications. Some actually had been shot; faces he knew, voices he had heard. Wounds. Contact with all of the mysterious diseases kept in the basement.

Some deaths after the fact. Not all of disease.

As his heart beat more quickly, Sakuya found himself feeling oddly removed from the situation. He heard Kazuaki list their names, but there were so many; it was like wave after wave after wave sucking at his feet on the shore. Dead. Not seen in a while. Moved out. Finishing high school next year, or maybe the year after. Married and then gone. And over it all, like a prayer, Kazuaki’s lilting, unchanging voice, his little smile, his eyes watching the sun sink lower on the horizon.

Were his hands shaking? 

“And then, of course, the good doctor.” 

Sakuya startled. Kazuaki smiled. “I live with him now. It’s a small place, but we get by.”

“You… live with him now?” Sakuya didn’t even feel the words leave his mouth.

Kazuaki finally met his eyes. A film of sleep seemed, even now, to hang over them. Sleep in them, and shadows underneath. His fingers clasped his own chin to hold up his slumping head. He smiled like a cat. 

“He won’t ever get away from me.” 

The dust wavered between them in the bright air. Sakuya’s skin prickled with fear.

Yes, this was the man who dragged Ryouta into a closed room with a gun in his hand to kill him. And this was the man who had been across the room from him all along.

It was the sound of other people scraping chairs and shuffling pages across the library who brought him back into his buzzing skull, at least enough for him to feel his own clammy skin; he took comfort in the sound of other people being there. He took comfort in the normal day happening to others (and their ability to be witnesses).

Kazuaki didn’t seem to care about the abject fear he had inspired in Sakuya. His slanted eyes seemed to notice, blinking slowly, but it wasn’t of any consequence. “He’s quite quiet, usually. I barely notice him. Quiet and clean, absorbed in his books and his notes, but he does mumble under his breath if he gets lost in his studies and doesn’t think I’m listening any more. Awful things. Amazing, what a person could have found out that way. Easily. It’s a shame that he always tied our hands up so well. What could have happened drives me crazy sometimes. 

“Oh, I sometimes visit the boy from down the hall… he’s doing quite well. One of the only other ones still going to school, I think. Some people just handle well.”

It was less than a full minute before Sakuya miraculously realized that, oh, quel dommage, his class was starting in just a few minutes, how could he have gotten so distracted talking? What a shame, Professor, hope to see you in the near future, oh, Yuuya, he’s fine, but he really had to go, TAKE CARE.

The bright afternoon sun took an hour to reach his skin, it seemed like. He ran until he reached the train, and rode until he was home, and spent the whole evening with his mother, baking dinner, reading a book, doing his homework, and stayed up almost all the night with sheets of music and a heavy gut. 

Yuuya slipped into the house after the moon has already started fading and found him wide awake. Ironically, it was the sound of Yuuya humming and fixing coffee that lulled Sakuya into sleep. 

-

It was over a full 24 hours after that disconcerting meeting that Sakuya looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, toothpaste on his face, and thought to himself, ‘wait, did Professor Kazuaki say that Ryouta’s mother is living in the hospital?’ 

Needless to say, a meeting was swiftly arranged. For all his faults, Sakuya prided himself on doing what should be done. That weekend (though irrationally worried that Professor Kazuaki would be there) he and Yuuya both walked into Mrs. Kawara’s hospital room, carrying tulips, and found a woman the color of paper and the scent of formaldehyde, decaying and smiling. His red, soft eyes looked out of her face, and his gentle voice floated out of her throat.

She recognized them both, though they had never met her. Ryouta had mentioned them, Sakuya more than Yuuya, but both all the same, since they were APPARENTLY, and to Sakuya’s MORTIFIED SHOCK, something of a source of comedy to the other students of St. Pigenation’s before that day. For a while, he had been known to her as ‘the weird Frenchman,’ and then as ‘the rich weirdo’ as he began to tire his classmates, and then, finally, to Ryouta, at least, ‘the weird kid, Sakuya.’ And his weird brother, of course. 

Yuuya was delighted. Sakuya was as red as a rose, but since that made Mrs. Kawara laugh, he allowed it. Until laughing made Mrs. Kawara start coughing, that is. 

Of course they talked about Ryouta. He was the only thing none of them should talk about, but that didn’t change the fact that they had to talk about him. They didn’t talk about that day. They talked about that café job he had and how one day, everyone saw him sprinting across the campus, late to class and in a frilly dress from work, making a beeline for the locker room so that he could at least be wearing PANTS before he stumbled fifteen minutes late into home room. Oh, and the day he barely made it to the infirmary before being sick, and threw up on Dr. Iwamine’s shoes. Oh, and that sweet day where, unbeknownst to everyone else in the school, he stayed late for hours cleaning up a mess someone else had made, because he was so kind-hearted. Oh, and who could forget the time he and Hiyoko tried to compete in the three-legged race together, and it was an utter disaster, because Hiyoko was a natural athlete and Ryouta was so much not, so she practically dragged him across the track as he screamed and skinned his knees. 

“Some used to call them the odd couple,” Yuuya laughed. “Pretty little Ryouta and his husband, the powerful Hiyoko.” 

Mrs. Kawara started laughing so hard she coughed again, and Sakuya gave Yuuya a dirty look for it as he dutifully adjusted her pillow and offered her water. “Thank you, thank you very much,” she said.

“Not at all,” Sakuya rebuffed. 

“It’s so hard to be comfortable anymore,” she sighed, “And it wouldn’t bother me, not really, because I’ve been in pain for so long now. Not to complain, really; I’m trying to say that that’s how it is now. I don’t mind the pain; it’s what the pain stops me from doing. I used to have a garden…”

Yuuya deflected the conversation excellently. But Sakuya didn’t get the hint this time. “Surely something can be done,” he said. I’ve heard of a treatment they have in Berlin…”

Mrs. Kawara crinkled her eyes. Sakuya knew the look of someone pretending to be happy too well now. (It reminded him of his brother.) “Oh, I know what you mean… I’ve heard of that procedure. I don’t think I would be able to do something like that, you know, so much machinery, so many risks…”

“Wouldn’t it be worth it?” asked Sakuya.

“Well…” Mrs. Kawara mumbled. Yuuya deflected the conversation more forcefully, and Sakuya let him.

Feeling a little uncomfortable, and berating himself for making her uncomfortable, Sakuya spent the rest of the visit even more fiercely tending to Mrs. Kawara’s needs. He felt small, for some reason. Yuuya had interested Mrs. Kawara in a conversation about what they were doing with the school campus now, which, though risky territory, he expertly kept light by focusing on the good progress that had been made and how a lot of the mysterious, leftover discoveries had been aiding science. They were building a memorial garden. Yuuya pledged to bring Mrs. Kawara to visit it, one way or another, and to bring pictures to their next visit anyway.

Oh, how she lit up when he said “our next visit.”

It was not the end of visiting hours but Mrs. Kawara’s clear fatigue which cut short their visit, and though she protested, Yuuya insisted on ushering them both out the door so she could rest. Bending down to say goodbye to her, Sakuya caught Mrs. Kawara’s red, gentle eyes, and was hit in his gut by a wave of nostalgia. 

Every day, for a year, those sweet, red eyes, coming with a kind voice and a boy who sat in front of him every day for homeroom, laughing with his friends, helping out confused classmates, treating them all the same. All of them. 

Sakuya just like anyone else.

“I.” “Your…” son was a wonderful person. “We” are going to bring him back. I promise. “Er.” I shouldn’t say this, but... no one deserved this less. 

He banished his fumbling with clearing his throat. It was not the good sense he didn’t have but shyness around those confused red eyes that made him finish the visit with “Sorry. It was wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Kawara. I hope to see you soon.”

They walked silently out of the hospital, into the sun, and to either side of Yuuya’s car. Sakuya glared at Yuuya until he begrudgingly buckled his seat belt, and they turned out of the parking lot.

“I don’t understand the sort of person who would refuse medical help if it could help them,” Sakuya said.

Yuuya exhaled a surprisingly testy breath. His face was pinched. “Mon joli, mon frere, you imbecile, it’s the money. She was giving you excuses; she doesn’t have a hundredth, not a thousandth of what such a procedure would cost. Her living family would be in debt forever and she might not even be any better off.”

Sakuya felt like a bucket of ice had been dumped on his head. He colored and darted his glance out the window, and he didn’t even try to come back against that. Yuuya exhaled out his anger and drove them silently down the street. 

Sakuya had thought the reality of no longer being absurdly wealthy had sunk into him. The poor meals had sure sunk into him. The fretting and fear about schoolbooks, transportation, work, the future, rent; watching something he couldn’t touch or speak to wear down his mother and brother and mock him with its facelessness; he had already endured that.

But this; suddenly, painfully realizing that he could no longer help anyone, no longer aid a friend in need, no longer dream about starting a philanthropy one day or fixing the problem when someone needed him; the reality of no longer having the power to help when help was technically available hurt him worse than almost anything had since he let go of Ryouta’s hand. 

He didn’t reply to Yuuya. They spoke about something else when they returned to the apartment. Sakuya didn’t lie in bed reflecting on his own changed condition that night. He heard the shuffling and crying of every other poor soul in the building around him, and in the blocks surrounding him, and in the whole city, where they died for want of money, and he understood. 

He couldn’t help. THAT was being poor. 

The next day was the first day he called one of the numbers given to him after being released from police custody in case he ever needed help or wanted to know about post-incident efforts. He asked what they knew about the progress being made to revive the students left in St. Pigeonation’s Academy.


	3. Chapter 3

And so time went on. Sakuya passed a semester with admirable grades, and Ms. Shirogane, Yuuya, and Sakuya—the family—went out to eat to celebrate one night. After another painful reminder in which Yuuya paid for the food with crumpled bills as his mother looked away, Sakuya started the next semester with his studies and an awful job at a café. (He got in because they recognized him. They used to employ Ryouta. It was a very solemn moment until Sakuya remembered what Ryouta had been employed to do. And wear. 

He could never figure out how to feel while wearing the lacy petticoats that used to belong to his semi-deceased friend. Awkward was the only feeling he settled on.)

He also began working with the Dove Party; not in terms of having a job of them, but in terms of actively cooperating. After all, they oversaw the aftermath of that day, since the government officially dropped it after handing out paltry monetary compensation and hearing it was in other hands. It’s from them that he learned that, yeah, progress to revive Ryouta and Hiyoko was continuing, done by one Dr. Iwamine Shuu, as overseen by the Party. 

It was also from them that he learned that Higure Anghel had been recently committed full time to a House. He assured that the Party was also keeping an eye on Anghel and that he had been committed to be helped, not forgotten, but hearing it made Sakuya’s stomach drop. (Another face from school. Another voice he used to hear in the hall. Another hand he held on that awful day, in that awful basement.

The boy who curled up his fists and screamed through his tears into a broken Ryouta’s face that he had to snap out of it and come back to them. The boy whose strange power woke him up.)

Mrs. Kawara persevered, even though it was clear that she shouldn’t be persevering so long. The doctors told them, after they had visited enough times that they had to be considered, that she should have been at death’s door long ago. Her body was too weak with age to withstand the illness ravaging her. (But the heart is another part of the body, and everyone knew why she had not died yet.)

-

Ms. Shirogane took to the single life, after her decades of marriage, perhaps too well. Sakuya considered himself a saint for the times he had to listen to his mother and older brother pick out eligible young people for each other, on the television or in an actual, live crowd. Especially in the instances where Ms. Shirogane picked out a man and Yuuya AGREED HE WAS ATTRACTIVE.

“Yuuya, STOP,” he hissed one day as he brother honest to God bit his lip and waggled his eyebrows at a man on the street to make their mother giggle behind her sleeve. 

“That’s awful.”

“Says the boy who wears skirts and pantyhose to work,” said his brother with a smirk.

“For WORK.” 

“And you’ve never felt flattered when some nice young man complimented you on your lovely dress?”

Sakuya flushed all the way down his neck. “’Nice young men’ aren’t my usual customers,” he muttered. 

(He was trying to not think about that one man. The 20-something man with his computer and his briefcase, trying to work in the café, who looked up from his keyboard to see Sakuya in a dress and his hair in a bow, handing him a menu, and gazed, not at his body, but into his eyes, with a stare as hot as fire.

Sakuya almost tripped a dozen times on his way back to the kitchen after the man ordered café del leche, light on the sugar, and he thought about him for days. He thought about him and didn’t think about him, trying to banish this IDIOTICY from his mind.)

Yuuya calmly patted his brother on the shoulder. They were out celebrating again; a mode of celebration unusual but welcome to Sakuya, who was used to long dinner parties and expensive gifts handed off through assistants. Yuuya celebrated by spending all the money he could (a little more, now, since Sakuya paid the electricity and the cable) on a night out for everyone. For a spare hour, the first time, Sakuya wondered what was so great about a decent meal and some drinks had in public.

Then he spent five hours laughing and joking, leisurely eating and debating and reconsidering, bonding and getting to know and talking for the sake of talking for perhaps the first time in his life, and he knew. 

(But he still fought the inevitable karaoke session with tooth and nail. He was a STUDENT of the FINE ARTS, not an ENTERTAINER, YUUYA FOR PITY’S SAKE LET ME GO.)

This time, they were celebrating someone else’s achievement, someone from Yuuya’s work, but it was a fine night all the same. Lanterns glowed outside on the porch as winter wind tossed them gently, the babble of joking and laughter rose up from around the room, the smells of the kitchen and the heat of its fires suffused the air, and comfortably, beautifully comfortably, Yuuya’s ankle and calf under the table touched Sakuya’s where they leaned in opposite directions, and nobody minded, there was nothing wrong about it, and Sakuya had his brother there. 

There was no reason to act offended at the closeness, at the informality, at the presumption. Everything was fine. 

He admitted his good mood dampened a little when Leone entered the room. Not because he didn’t like Leone; he was another of Yuuya’s coworkers, he was fine company, and he was very generous with the information Sakuya wanted at any given time, because he had seen him on that day.

Which was why seeing Leone, despite everything, still dampened his spirits. Because they looked at each other and saw that day. 

Hiyoko’s head in a cardboard box. Yuuya turning the color of snow as he started bleeding out. His trusted professor with a gun. His trusted doctor with a knife. The rows of glittering rifles that met them in the spring sunlight. 

Ryouta’s dull, red eyes. 

Yuuya shifted to extend his hand to Leone and offer him a place at the table. Leone accepted, and Sakuya smiled genially, because, seriously, Leone was a good man and now was not the time to be surly. As Yuuya settled back down, the brothers ended up side by side again, practically hip to hip, and though Sakuya was again hit with the instinct to act like he minded, he pushed it away. 

There were no expectations. He could just be fond of his brother and not be afraid. 

“You two look more alike every day,” Leone laughed as he sat down. 

Yuuya practically preened. “He is developing some good looks as he grows into a man.” 

“Pardon?” asked Sakuya icily. “I’m starting to look like an old man?” 

Yuuya elbowed him, but playfully. “I’m sure it’s really the good spirits that make you look more like me. All that grumpiness you used to carry around did you no favors.”

“Oh, who says that ‘grumpiness’ is gone,” Sakuya muttered, but he had to take a sip of his drink to hide his grin. 

Leone settled down and ordered something to drink. Sakuya might have ended up subconsciously leaning into Yuuya. He decided that was too much and stopped himself. 

Leone and Yuuya ended up quickly absorbed in a conversation that Sakuya couldn’t quite follow, but he listened anyway. Listening to even unimportant details had saved his life before. It was all Party talk, of course; since they were in a private room, they could feel free to talk normally, if not boisterously. Sure, most everyone had a hidden knife on them, just in case, but neither the Hawks nor the Doves were about open air fighting; they liked for people to not even know they existed. 

Sakuya absorbed himself in listening to details, trying to learn names and places, not necessarily to join the conversation but to know who he was introducing himself to if he was ever introduced. A lot of that had already happened tonight—a new recruit? they asked. Always good to see—no? Oh, brought by Shirogane. You’re not—his brother? 

Oh, wonderful—

Oh. You’re his brother.

I’m sorry. 

What else would they think of, Sakuya asked himself. How else would they know him? Some of these were the people he had been badgering on the phone, asking about former classmates, what about that boy from 2-1, what about that girl from 2-3, what about professor this, professor that? 

And what about Iwamine? 

How far along was he?

He was brought back from his daze when he realized that Leone had suddenly stopped talking about so-and-so’s fantastic wife. Very suddenly. He was looking at Yuuya, eyes tight, and Yuuya was looking at their mother. 

Their mother was talking to a Party member. He was perhaps in his thirties; younger than her, but close to her age. He was leaning, just slightly, into their table, hands moving in talk as she stared winningly into his eyes. 

Sakuya had already prepared to roll his eyes. Oh, mother. Oh, Yuuya, look at mother doing that silly thing again.

Yuuya was livid. 

To say Sakuya was taken aback was an understatement. Yuuya had been joking about setting his mother up just a spare hour past. But his face was pale, except for a pair of ugly red blotches on his cheeks, and his eyes were tighter and sharper than Sakuya had ever seen them. Yuuya felt Sakuya’s gaze on him, and for a sharp second, he forgot to relax and lean back and be Yuuya, and glared at Sakuya with all the rage he could produce. 

And then it fell. His eyes went soft. He glanced over to their mother again, grimaced, and glanced back. He visibly forced himself to calm down. 

“Forgive me,” he said, only loud enough for Sakuya to hear.

“Yuuya.”

Even more chagrined, he looked down and said, “It didn’t go very well last time.” 

His tone was self-aggrandizing, but Sakuya knew how serious his comment was. ‘Last time’ was Mr. La Bel. ‘Last time’ was Sakuya. 

Sakuya found himself at a loss for anything to say. 

Yuuya politely excused himself from the party for a moment outside. Sakuya could only watch him distancing himself and the line of his shoulders growing harsher with every step for about three seconds before he stood up. 

All the same, he hovered just inside of the door, at the border of the cold wind, watching Yuuya lean against the wooden guardrail on the porch, thrown occasionally into shadow by the tossing lights, and breathe icy breath. 

And then he saw him pull a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket and lost it.

“SHIROGANE YUUYA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.”

Yuuya jumped and turned around, looking as guilty as a child stealing candy. “Cigarettes,” he said, trying to morph into a look of feigned innocence. 

Being the person he was, he decided he was going to march up to Yuuya, rip the cigarette packet out of his hands, and chuck it somewhere else. And he did. Yuuya gaped as he watched the box arc away and land on a lamplit street some twenty feet away.

“Those are expensive,” he said petulantly.

“Yuuya, I cannot believe you have such a,” 

“Sakuya.”

“You cur, you absolute,”

“Sakuya,” sighed Yuuya.

“We had an agreement about you trying to not get killed??” 

Yuuya looked at him in frustration, for a moment. But then his expression softened, in a way he didn’t like. 

He looked like he was pitying him. 

Sakuya puffed out a breath. “Why on earth would you smoke those things?”

Yuuya still had that strange look on his face. “Old habit. Years old. You never smelled smoke on my clothing?” 

“Well. No. Yuuya, do you have any idea how awful this—“

“Yes. I’m aware how awful this is for me.”

Yuuya’s monotone voice finally shut Sakuya down. He ended up staring up at his brother, waiting. Yuuya didn’t budge.

He eventually looked down, and stepped closer to his brother, leaning against the railing. The wind pulled Yuuya’s white breath over his face. “I didn’t even come out here to yell at you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m incredibly bad at this.”

Yuuya shrugged.

Sakuya sighed. “No. Really. I feel like I’m trying to… do calculus. Make a spaceship. Some other analogy showing how impossible this task is for me. I don’t know how to handle you. It’s not just you. I don’t know how to handle anyone. I was supposed to take care of myself and let everyone else do the same.”

He leaned his chin into his folded arms. “I’m really starting to hate myself for that.”

Yuuya leaned down a bit too. He looked at his brother, and then looked back out and away.

A strong gust blew fallen leaves down the street. 

“I try not to blame people for how they were brought up to be,” Yuuya said. “I will blame them for continuing to be that way once they’re grown. And you’re trying so hard to be someone else. Better. What would I be mad at you for?”

Sakuya glared at his brother. “For coming out here to check up on you but deciding to throw your hard-earned money across the street instead?”

Yuuya snorted. “Who does that?”

“I am probably alone in that.”

He laughed a bit more sincerely. “Not your fault I started out this episode surly. Not your fault that you couldn’t handle me either, mon frere. You’re just starting out. I lived a life before you even knew me.”

Sakuya looked sharply at his brother. His brother did not look at him. 

He really didn’t know how to handle Yuuya.

He realized, suddenly, that no one did. Probably, no one had even tried. 

Sakuya settled further down into his arms and sighed. 

Yuuya leaned slightly against him. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Hm?”

“Who would you have been without my—without Mr. La Bel? And me?” 

Yuuya shrugged. “It’s too weird to think about. It would have been an entirely different life.”

“Hm.”

Yuuya waited for a moment, and then took a deeper breath. “But you didn’t exactly intrude, joli. It was him who changed my life for the worse. Not you. You know… I kept you.”

Sakuya watched the leaves go down the street. God, did that cold wind sting his eyes.

Yuuya pulled the nails of one hand along his forearm. Sakuya had expected him, for some reason, to be a man with polished nails, but he wasn’t. Chipped, even chewed. “I don’t really have a problem with her finding another man. Well, I shouldn’t. She should have whatever she wants.”

Yuuya’s suppressed tone made Sakuya laugh. Despite himself, Yuuya laughed with him. “It’s my problem, really.”

“I don’t blame you. Considering.”

“I don’t blame me either.” 

“Of course you don’t.”

“Mon dieu, what is that tone?” Yuuya asked, mock-offended.

“Only saying that you are completely justified in your prejudices, considering your unfortunate experiences.”

“Well.” 

Yuuya shoved Sakuya playfully, and Sakuya shoved back. Within about two second’s time, they were more or less engaged in trying to dump each other over the railing, laughing as they did.

The door opened behind them. “That boor will not leave me alone,” sighed the voice of Ms. Shirogane. “Yuuya, would you come in here and—Yuuya. Why are you trying to drop your brother over a railing and into the street.”

“He started it.”

“No.”

“You were being obnoxious.”

“Excuse me, MON FRERE, I believe that you started shoving me, and I merely defended myself—“

Ms. Shirogane sighed. Yuuya let go of Sakuya and Sakuya scrambled back onto his feet, straightening his tousled hair as he did so. “As I was saying. Yuuya, this boor you work with will not leave me alone. Will you come back in here and engage him, or introduce me to someone else?”

Yuuya stared at his mother for a second. He smiled slowly. Then he laughed. “Oh, mother, it’s my fault for leaving you in there alone. What was I thinking?” he shook his head, and then jauntily marched over to his mother to take her arm and escort her back inside. “Let me introduce you to… Sakuya, are you coming?” 

“In a minute,” he replied. Since Yuuya was occupied with their mother, he let him stay, but he gave Sakuya a sharp glance. A glance that meant something like ‘you better not stay out here to be miserable alone, or so help me.’

Sakuya waved him off. The door slid shut behind him, and Sakuya looked out into the street a minute longer. He waited for a few stray cars, headlights blazing, to pass him by, and then leapt over the rail. (It wouldn’t have actually hurt much if Yuuya had dropped him, he realized, but of course, Yuuya had no intention of doing so. For the lifestyle he led, he took care not to hurt people.)

The cigarette pack, of course, had landed in a puddle. Sakuya grimaced at it. Awful things. Always gave him headaches. Made a mess out of one’s body, and if one didn’t have their health…

Anyway, he’d just have to buy Yuuya another. He figured he would have to, but he wanted to get the brand correct. 

-

Yuuya practically punched him when he presented him with a new pack of better, more expensive cigarettes. Of course, it might have been because he presented them by saying “I absolutely detest these things.”

“I will continue to smoke them outside and on the job, then, you intolerable darling,” Yuuya replied. 

“And when do you plan to quit.”

“Sakuya, my beautiful, precious brother, it’s none of your business.” 

Yuuya dodged the question enough times for that feeling which was beginning to plague Sakuya, that feeling of being unable to change something, to help, settled into his bones again. He was forced to drop it instead of getting his way through sheer determination, which was still WEIRD, honestly. 

(He did take notice, after some time, of the fact that Yuuya would be much less tense after a few minutes alone outside. It had just been hard, before spending so much time with him, to tell when Yuuya was tense. It was in the minutia of his face muscles, and the fiddling of his fingers, and it was very subtle.)

It was after a full year of living with Yuuya and about half a year of higher education that Sakuya first saw Higure Anghel again.


End file.
